Why Your Hockey Team Won’t Win The Stanley Cup

Blame Labor Relations Lawyer/Commissioner Gary Bettman.

He is the main reason why your team will not win the Stanley Cup. He hates the game of hockey, and loves the owner of your favorite hockey team. He is why your team doesn’t have a second line that can score. He is the reason why your team is locking up mediocre players to long-term lucrative contracts. He is the reason why the game SUCKS COLD BALLS right now.

Anyway…

on to the absolute worst NHL season preview ever committed to an Internet page.

1. Anaheim Ducks

Reason #1: Coach Bruce Boudreau. He’s proven with the Washington Capitals that he can take the most talented team in hockey and turn them into dogshit in the playoffs. So what makes you think he can take an above average team like the Ducks and even win one playoff series?

Reason $2: They have two #1 goalies in Jonas Hiller and Viktor Fasth. Which actually means they have ZERO #1 goalies. If you’re a Ducks fan, root for one of them to get hurt because come playoff time, the starter will always be looking over his shoulder.

Reason #3: Not enough goal scorers.

Reason why they might win one playoff series: The grit of Saku Koivu. He is my favorite player in the league, and I burn with hatred at my Canadiens for letting him go.

2. Boston Bruins

Reason #3: Weak D. Losing Andrew Ference will hurt bad. After felony-assaulter Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg, it’s Katie bar the door in front of Rask. Look for Chara to play all 60 minutes of every game.

5. Carolina Hurricanes

Reason #2: Alex Semin, owner of the hardest ever NHL wrist shot, will — despite scoring 35+ goals — record the first -100 plus/minus rating in league history because he doesn’t know what the term “back check” means in English or Russian.

8. Columbus Blue Jackets

The Blue Jackets players are required to wear vintage Members Only blue jackets on road trips.

Reason #1: Their best player, Russian netminder Sergei Bobrovsky, was great last year, winning the Vezina Trophy. He was also great two years ago for the Flyers. This is his fall on his face year. Sorry, that’s how it usually goes with flaky goaltenders (I’m an ex-left winger, I hate goalies).

Reason #2: They have four ex-New York Rangers on their roster. The ex-New York Rangers all know one thing really well — sucking in the playoffs.

Reason #3: Their nickname is the stupidest in the league (a hockey team [of mostly Canadian players] and the Civil War are connected…how?).

10. Detroit Red Wings

Reason #1: They will miss the retired Nicklas Lidstrom. Yes I know, they didn’t have him last year, and their impressive playoff showing made all the experts say they didn’t miss the best NHL defenseman of the last 15 years. Bullshit. Mark my words: Their shaky D will miss the hell out of him this season.

Reason #2: Newly acquired forward Daniel Alfredsson will be so shocked by the sight of downtown Detroit (above) that he will hightail it back to his native Sweden to finish out his career.

Reason #3: I don’t have a Reason #3. I actually like the Red Wings team.

11. Edmonton Oilers

Reason #2: Because they don’t have Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Glen Anderson, Grant Fuhr, Paul Coffey, and especially Jaroslav Pouzar (above) anymore. Pouzar, you probably don’t know because you’re not from Edmonton or the Czech Republic or as much of a hockey fan as I am, somehow managed to score only 15 goals playing left wing on a line with Gretzky and Kurri for the entire 1982-83 season. A trash can would have scored at least 25 goals with those two passing to it.

If the Edmonton Oilers are actually, really your favorite team, read more on why they suck at Puck Daddy.

18. New York Rangers

Reason #1: Goalie Henrik Lundqvist needs to score more than the zero goals he recorded last season.

Reason #2: Brad Richards joins a chorus line of NHL stars — that started sometime around John Ogrodnick — who’ve come to New York, and died on Broadway.

Reason #3: Lundqvist has been very lucky to have not faced the Montreal Canadiens in the playoffs, against whom his GAA is about six. I got a tingly feeling they’re going to meet in the first round this season.

20. Philadelphia Flyers

Reasons #1: I grew up in South Jersey — Flyer country — as a Canadiens fan and got slammed into lockers repeatedly in high school. So, I hate the Flyers.

Reason #2: Their goalie situation is a big fat beach ball of a question mark.

In the off season, Philly bought out their seven-year goalie signing mistake, Ilya Bryzgalov.
Here’s Bryzgalov on our solar system:

“Solar system is so humongous big, right? But if you see, the like, our solar system and our galaxy on the like on the side, you know, like, and we’re so small — you can never see it — our galaxy is like huge, but if you see the big picture, our galaxy (is like a) small tiny like dot in universe. Like, and I think like, ‘And we have some problems here on the earth we worry about?’ Compared to like … nothing. Just … be happy. Don’t worry, be happy right now.”

23. St. Louis Blues

Reason #1: Like with most teams, the question is: where are the goals going to come from?

Reason #2: They have no #1 goalie, they have three #1 goalies (read about them on Puck Daddy). As mentioned before, I hate goalies because I was a left wing in college and goalies are flaky unreliable paranoid weirdos (who stopped most of my shots), and this situation will create three MEGA flaky unreliable paranoid weirdos.

24. San Jose Sharks

Reasons #1 — 10: The Sharks are the perennial playoff choke team. Led by Joe Thornton, Logan Couture, and Patrick Marleau, they have the best group of forwards, maybe excepting Pittsburgh, in the NHL. But they’ve had the best group of forwards for years, and have done nothing in the playoffs with them. They have four solid defensemen. They have a very good goalie in Antti Niemi.

But you know what? They will lose in the first round of the playoffs. Again.

30. Montreal Canadiens (your 2014 Stanley Cup champions)

It’s been 20 years since the Habs — my Habs — have won the Cup. This is their year. Why? I have a feeling… Plus:

Norris trophy winner PK Subban (above) is the best defenseman in hockey, and he’s 24 years old and he’s is going to have a monster year — he got ripped in the off-season.

The Habs top 4 D-Men (Subban, Andrei Markov, Josh Georges, Alexei Emelin — when healthy) are the best all-around 4 D-men in the league (sorry Chicago). With Markov and Subban at the points, their power play is frighteningly good.

Goalie Carey Price had an off year last season, so following the indisputable flaky pattern of goalies, this season he will be superb.

Their forwards are, yes, too small. So what do they do? Sign little Danny Brière, who the Canadien French press have anointed — with their collective tongues — as the second coming of Guy Lafleur.

No matter: Max Pacioretty will lead the munchkins to the finals, despite having a name that Bell Centre public address announcer Michel Lacroix can’t make sound French, no matter how hard he tries.